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Its been awhile since an update and for the most part everything is going well. I noticed that my effluent line for my Ca reactor was a little slower than normal and so I decided to take out my canisters and rinse them out to help free up any loose particles that could be causing a clogging.

I also finally setup a few items that I bought on the black friday sale BRS had. The gear I bought was:
Tunze Nano scraper
Tunze Long Scrapper
Bio Pure Big Block
Some carbon and GFO
Plumbing part to fix clean up the plumbing from my Ca Rx to my BRS 2 part reactor. Prior to this, I was using a series of transition tubing to include a latex tube that I found could possibly crack and make a mess over time. I also found some algae growing on the clear airline tubing part of my transition and decided that I need to go with a darker color...black

So what I did was order a 1/8 to 3/8 and then 3/8th to 1/2 to fit my BRS dual stage reactor. For the 3/8 and 1/2 tubing parts, I am using black rigid RO tubing to keep algae growth at bay and to avoid any areas of possible clogging of materials from the Ca Rx.

Since I decided to keep my alk low at 7.5 to 8.0 dkh, I know that I need to watch my PO4 levels and keep things low to prevent the PO4 from Precipitating out the Alk and keeping my corals from absorbing the alk to build their skeletons and grow vertically!!! (an issue I seem to keep having in my tank). Since I'm currently using my BRS dual reactor as a secondary and tertiary release of CO2 from my system, I decided to go out and get myself some Nextreef reactors. I love these reactors and they can hold quite a bit of media, easy to clean, and you can swap out the connectors for murlock connectors, which I did. The problem is that the business went under so I had to go out and find some used ones. I had a spare one but needed another for Carbon. Fortunately, i found one locally but I sadly cracked the area where the canister meets the lid while loading up my car. So I had to go out and use some Weldon 16 to repair the crack and sadly, wait a few days for the seal to fully cure before use.

Now that I have them installed, I'm running roughly a 1 1/4 cups of media for both Carbon and GFO on my tank. Since I was burned in the past with burnt tips with too much GFO and stripping my tank, I was pleased to find that none of my sps frags showed the signs of burnt tips while using my GFO. So now, my tank cabinet is really cluttered and I need to clean up my cabling, which I was able to buy some 3d printed parts to help me with that. More on that in another posts.
I was able to also get some new frags of some nice pieces from my buddy Mike Z and also my beloved Minh's Tri Color which I banked with him years ago and repeatedly kill due to some stupid alk swings or another. Mike was nice of enough to give me a nice big frag for holding some of his corals, and it has been about a few days and my frag is looking nice and happy with some good PE. It was a super fast grower and show stopper for me in the past, and I hope it will continue to do well for me in the future!!!

Now for some pics:

Leftside of my tank

One of the sps racks on my right side:

I'll have to do an updated FTS when the lights come on at full blast

Last edited by Justin; Wed, 6th Dec 2017 at 12:26 PM.

-Justin

3 Simple Rules in Life1) If you do not GO after what you want, you値l never have it.2) If you do not ASK, the answer will always be NO3) If you do not step forward, you値l always be in the same place

Since I'm now running GFO and carbon, I decided to run the output in my macrofuge to help create some more flow for my carpet nem and clowns to have. I hope the nem will love the extra flow to bring food into its mouth. I decided to make a quick video of my sump area for you guys:

One thing I need to do now is clean up my wiring. I was able to order some 3D printing stuff from a local guy. I'm planning on doing an orange theme with the gear and I will eventually be taking my doors off and screwing the metal hardware off and painting them orange to help protect them a bit from rust and humidity on the sump. Here is a pic of the stuff I got:

Tubing holders

Red sea vial holder
Hanna Vial Holder
Mount for my kindle fire to make it a bit cleaner on the outside
If you would like to order some parts, check out https://printed3d.parts/shop

He is making quite a bit of pieces and can make custom pieces as well, just shoot him an email

-Justin

3 Simple Rules in Life1) If you do not GO after what you want, you値l never have it.2) If you do not ASK, the answer will always be NO3) If you do not step forward, you値l always be in the same place

Looks like everything is doing well. I used the Black Friday week at BRS to upgrade to a Chloramine Monster and get all new RO/DI Filters including a new membrane from BRS. I was tired of paying $60 for a 99% rejection membrane only to drop to 80% in 6 months.

Wow, that is a drastic change in efficiency after so little of time. Granted I try to change all of my filters in my RODI once a year, but 80% is allowing way too much through and way too costly to change. Marcello was mentioning that he was visually seeing his filters and rejection rates decrease in front of his.

My tank is now finally starting to really grow after stabilizing my alk, installing a GFO and carbon reactor. I'll have to shoot some pics of new growth, but I'm seeing tons of new growth on my new stag and even on my WD frag.

-Justin

3 Simple Rules in Life1) If you do not GO after what you want, you値l never have it.2) If you do not ASK, the answer will always be NO3) If you do not step forward, you値l always be in the same place